Needing ideas for cooling my shop

[turb0boost]

Hi all. I have a 40'x 70' steel building located in central Florida. The roof peaks are 16' tall. Non insulated and cannot be because I only rent the shop. 2 roll up doors 12'×10'. I have a 48" exhaust fan on one wall, and 3 roof peak vents. I'm looking for ways to cool this shop down without insulation or ac. The fan in the wall makes 0 difference when on. I was wondering if I mounted 2 cheap box fans per roof vent to push hot air out if it would help. Or would I be better off with ceiling fans? I have a 24" port a cool that works great if its pointed straight at you. I'm up for any ideas. Attached are some pictures to help. Thanks

 

[930dreamer]

Biggest issue is you can't remove the moisture in the air without A/C, so your just moving moisture laden air.

 

[turb0boost]

But I also cant keep the shop closed. It is my business. And I'm also adding moisture to the air with the port a cool. Unfortunately that's what I have to work with.

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[dcg9381]

You're in Florida. Man, that's a tough question. All you can do is generate air flow through that building and perhaps make sure that you're venting the hot air in the ceiling.

The only suggestion I might have is to move to a push-pull configuration with fans on opposite side walls.

 

[turb0boost]

Thank you for the helpful reply. I see alot or readers but nobody has any experience I'm guessing. I was hoping someone would know the physics of my situation and help with the solution. Thanks again

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[dcg9381]

Physics of your situation may be different than the "apparent comfort" related to moving that air.
You have an exhaust fan, which creates negative pressure in that building.
We don't know if you have cross ventilation (open doors) or prevailing wind.
We don't know what the temp inside the building is versus ambient temperature outside during working hours.

Can give "general" advice - but you're also limiting our options as it's a rental.

You're in FL. Are you pulling "outside" air in for your swamp cooler? These are most efficient in geography where humidity is low. If you have it indoors and you're just recirculating saturated air, it's not going to work very well. And it won't work well in general on humid days.

My plan would be to get air-flow through that shop by whatever means necessary, probably a push-pull setup (if possible) or work to create positive pressure if your ridge vents are big enough, pulling cool air in from low outside.


What has helped me (personally) in situations of non-HVAC shop work, hot/humid environment, is really just some form of direct airflow from a large 4' (or bigger) fan. but it's direction specific.

Some leases will allow "improvements" but I get it that you may be throwing money away.

 

[metlmunchr]

Thank you for the helpful reply. I see alot or readers but nobody has any experience I'm guessing. I was hoping someone would know the physics of my situation and help with the solution. Thanks again

The physics of your situation is simple. Hot as hell. Humid as hell. Open doors. No insulation. Due to prevailing humidity levels, you've already found that a swamp cooler does near nothing except for jacking the interior humidity levels up to near 100%.

There is no magic bullet for cooling such a place short of adding 10 to 15 tons of air conditioning, or insulating it and adding 5 to 7.5 tons.

As it currently stands, the building is the equivalent of an umbrella in that it does nothing more than keep the direct sun and rain off your head. The path from there to even reasonably comfortable working conditions requires nothing more or less than a whole bunch of dollars.

 

[turb0boost]

Thats the answer that I needed but not the answer I wanted. Lol. And all that makes sense. I dont expect to have a cold shop or even cool shop. But would be nice to make it tolerable. Insulation and ac is out of the question. Because I only rent the building. So I guess my problem is what would be the most effective way to be more tolerable? Do I need to have fans pushing air down and circulating fresh air in? Or fans pushing hot air up and out of my roof vents? Thanks for the info thus far.

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[Kaizen]

damn brother. think of working midnight to 8am? I thought everything in fl had ac.
do you run that fan all night? might be able to close it up when you get there and have a few hours of relative cooler air.
You need to have cfm in match cfm out at least. doubt those roof vents will move as much air as the big one. can you put another exhaust on the opposite end of the shop wall and add some cheap ceiling fans?
talk to the owner about letting you insulate it and he just pays for the insulation. even putting a ceiling with insulation would make it a lot better.

 

[turb0boost]

I wish I could honestly I work 9-9 at least already. My landlord situation is a unique one. Shop rent stays cheaper because I pay for upgrades and repairs. But i also dont want to dunp that much money into a place that will never be mine. The fan doesnt do much honestly. Cutting the wall for a fan is a no go. Ceiling fans will probably be my best/only bet. I guess the better question. Would be would a few ceiling fans moving air in the shop be worth even doing. Or would box fans forcing air out of the roof vents draw in cooler air.

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[turb0boost]

A few pics

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[Toolfool]

I just moved to northern Florida 2-1/2 weeks ago and I feel your pain. I have a 25' x 25' steel building where all my tools and equipment are stored right now and the temps are keeping me from getting anything accomplished inside that building. I now refer to it as "The Oven". I hope you find some relief.

 

[fartymarty]

We have a metal gazebo in the back yard, and in the summer it was like an oven until I started stringing up a tarp in the late spring. If it's 95 out, then it's 95 out, but without the tarp it felt like 125 or more under that open sided metal roof.





I think that a lot of your heat discomfort is coming from the radiated heat from your metal roof. For a test, get a large umbrella and open it and stand under it for a few minutes (at least 2), then quickly close it and see if it suddenly feels much warmer. As a second test, get the largest silver plastic tarp that you can, say from HF, and string it up across the ceiling on the side of the shop that gets the most sun as close to the ceiling as you can (preferably without blocking airflow to the ridge vent). Then by just standing under it and then not standing under it see if you notice a significant difference. You could also get a cheap laser thermometer to check temps of the tarp vs the ceiling. If that helps (meaning you are getting a lot of radiated heat) and there is no way for a more permanent solution (too many air lines and hanging lights in the way maybe) to install across the ceiling, then maybe you can get/fabricate some large cantilevered umbrella stands on rollers to move to the work area of the moment.
Perhaps something like this on rollers only cover the fabric with mylar and add some lighting and small personal sized fan underneath it. Perhaps put a box on the stand and throw in your old brake discs as ballast to make it more stable, or better maybe a big cooler with Gatorade in it.


--------------------------------

Now, not so much about discomfort as just just about safety and health, if you must work under these conditions to put food on the table and it's getting to become a safety hazard, you might want to consider a cool shirt system ( I use a similar Veskimo {chilled water pumped through} on my motorcycle in the summers here in Texas) or phase change vests. If your air supply is good I believe they also have cooling vests that use an air hose. Not easy to wrench in maybe but perhaps needed in your case just to live through the day?
Best wishes, work safe.

 

[1redTA]

put a sprinkler on the roof

 

[y'sguy]

I might agree with farty marty.

Except I would consider buying 4 x 8 sheets of the Blue foam insulation. , Suspend it from the ceiling by a makeshift light weight grid system. Somewhat like a suspended ceiling. It won't be pretty,but would have to help. you could easily zip tie the sheets together. Just an idea, but you'll need to do the labor. good luck.

 

[Bigbandguy]

If I had to work all day in something that hot I would figure something out. Have you thought about a framework of some sort like a tent over the work area? I would do something like that and rig a window unit in it. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Outside that tent if it was a little hotter it would not matter. Might have to install a home AC pump to take the condensate out. Maybe a "greenhouse" type structure covering the work area and put a DIY mini split in it. There has to be a way to at least cool a work area or a shell of some sort to escape to. This is definitely a problem that calls for redneck engineering.

 

[oldtimehockey]

Toolfool…
Promise me that y'all will do your very best to get to those carbon steel tools ASAP and get a good coating of oil or other rust inhibitor on them...the humidity (and salt) is unrelenting year round...At least you are not on a coast...but...reward them with indoor air conditioning if possible...get all metal off of the concrete...toolboxes, scrap metal too good to throw out", etc...keep an eye on your Snap-on box and your other toolboxes for rust...inside the boxes and out...it never ends in Florida.
Miss you guys, Oldtimehockey

 

[SGKent]

I'd be talking with the Landlord about adding insulation of some kind. Working in unconditioned hot garages in summer, and cold in winter was one of the reasons I decided to leave the automotive trade.

Painting the outside of the roof bright white might help a little.

 

[mike93lx]

Are you staying there for a while? If so, then spring for improvements. At a point, health and safety trump equity.

 

[Bigbandguy]

OP check this thread about halfway down. This unit from Costco might be exactly what you need if you add some sort of shelter around the immediate work area. It's like a mini split but portable.

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=425163

 

[On-Wheel]

Tell land lord to insulate roof or move.Probaly 20*-
Everyone has an exhaust fan down there in a dead wall.
Big fan pulling air through the back wall?